Ferrari outfox Mercedes in strategic Singapore GP as Vettel bests teammate Leclerc for win; Vertsappen P3

In a tense and highly strategic Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday, where track position was king on the extremely tight Marina Bay Street Circuit, resurgent Ferrari made the right calls while Mercedes gambled and lost. Sebastian Vettel, who has had a run of poor races recently and been eclipsed by the rising star of his younger teammate Charles Leclerc, was called to the pits on Lap 20 to respond to the similarly timed pit stop of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. While Leclerc was at that time leading the race and controlling the pace of the field from the front while nursing his tires, the Monegasque phenom had just passed the pit entrance when Ferrari’s brain trust saw that Verstappen’s crew were laying out tires for the Dutchman. Vettel, running just in front of Verstappen, happened to be right at the pit entrance, however, and fortuitously for him it was he who got the call to go for the undercut and ditch his Soft Pirelli’s for fresh Hard compound tires to hopefully get to the end of the race with only that one stop. It proved to be just the luck that Vettel, a four-time World Champion who frankly looked as if he had lost his touch in 2019, needed to get back to the top step of the podium and take a much-needed win to sooth his battered ego.

While Vettel rejoined the race in P10 he emerged in front of Verstappen, plus all of the cars in front him had yet to pit, including his teammate Leclerc and the two Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. When Leclerc came in for his own set of Hard tires a lap later Vettel’s pace on fresh rubber on his out lap was good enough get him in front of his formerly front running teammate. The now irate Leclerc was now doomed to look at Vettel’s gearbox for the rest of the race and he complained bitterly about the team’s decision making, which had essentially switched him from P1 to second place. Meanwhile Mercedes rolled the dice with Hamilton, who now led the race. While they ran Bottas only until Lap 23 until pitting him they kept Hamilton running at the front despite ever declining pace in regards to the two Ferraris and Verstappen’s Red Bull. It slowly became apparent that the Mercedes pit wall was either hoping for a Safety Car to provide them with a cheap and quicker pit stop than the usual 27-second delta under green flag conditions or they were trying to calculate the precise moment when the twin Ferraris would run into the slower traffic in front of them, thereby making a standard pit stop not as costly to Hamilton’s track position when he blended back in. But in the end it didn’t pay off.

There was no Safety Car at this time — in fairness there would be a raft of them later in the race — so Hamilton pitted on Lap 26 and was only stationary for 2.4 seconds as his Hards went on. But the Ferrari’s were barely impeded by the traffic in front of them and when Hamilton emerged he was behind not only Vettel and Leclerc but also Verstappen’s Red Bull. He did beat his teammate out for P4 but this was somewhat engineered by team orders to Bottas to hang back and cede Hamilton that position. The Englishman’s only hope of getting back to a podium finish after starting from P2 on the grid was that he had newer tires than his rivals that would enable him to make some passes at the end of the grueling 61-lap contest. But three Safety Car periods in the last 25 laps put paid to that hope and while the elite cars in the top five could pass inferior machines in twisty old Marina Bay none of the elite top five could pass each other. Vettel controlled his post-Safety Car restarts masterfully and kept his hungry and angry young teammate behind him to come away with his first F1 win since Belgium last year, a much needed salve to his frayed confidence. Leclerc had to settle for a somewhat hard-luck P2 and saw his win streak end at two. But it was an outstanding day for the famed Scuderia from Maranello, as they showed that the Prancing Horses could be fast not only on the wide open country tracks of Europe but also a high downforce street circuit like Singapore.

Verstappen finished a solid P3 for the last podium spot while Hamilton and Bottas finished a disappointing P4 and P5 respectively. While Mercedes’ lead in the Constructors’ standings and Hamilton’s in the Drivers’ is still unassailable Ferrari have now seriously gotten the better of them in three consecutive contests. Verstappen’s rookie Red Bull teammate Alexander Albon did very well on his first run in anger at this highly technical track to bring his mount home safely in P6, while fellow rookie Lando Norris had another fine effort for McLaren to finish P7. Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly in P8, Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg in P9 and Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi in P10 all did well to survive the walls and their competitors and come home in the points.

Top 10 finishers of the Singapore GP:

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	5	Sebastian Vettel	FERRARI	61	1:58:33.667	25
2	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	61	+2.641s	18
3	33	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING HONDA	61	+3.821s	15
4	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	61	+4.608s	12
5	77	Valtteri Bottas	MERCEDES	61	+6.119s	10
6	23	Alexander Albon	RED BULL RACING HONDA	61	+11.663s	8
7	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN RENAULT	61	+14.769s	6
8	10	Pierre Gasly	SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO HONDA	61	+15.547s	4
9	27	Nico Hulkenberg	RENAULT	61	+16.718s	2
10	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI	61	+27.855s	1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in but a week’s time at the Sochi Autodrom in Russia. Can Ferrari keep the mo going and will tensions within the team begin to boil to the top as the Vettel-Leclerc battle for supremacy heats up? Or will Mercedes and Hamilton resume their dominant ways at a circuit that should suit their car? Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!